Elder Art Online
by Orimorium
Summary: A story combining elements of both Sword Art Online and Log Horizon. Unable to complete his Nerve Gear research, Kayaba buys an existing MMO, Elder Tale, tweaks it and re-releases it as Elder Art Online. The game was a success but the players are now trapped inside. How will they escape?
**AN: All over the internet I see comparisons between Sword Art Online and Log Horizon. So why not combine them into a fanfic together?**

 **I, in no way shape or form, own Sword Art Online or Log Horizon and you should go support their official releases.**

 **Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's get to the story shall we?**

 _Kayaba Akihiko, despite inventing the Full-Dive technology, has been unable to find a way to make his work commercially viable. Wanting more money to fund his research, he buys an existing MMO server, that of Elder Tale, and modifies it slightly for release on November 6, 2022, the date he had originally hoped to complete his original VRMMO. The released MMO is called Elder Art Online. EAO, as the game comes to be called, is well received by MMO players at its release, prompting many former Elder Tale players to even return to the game. The servers had been live for a few months before things went horribly wrong..._

"W-What's going on here?" Solo-Player Kazuto Kirigaya asked himself as he looked around his new surroundings. One minute he was playing Elder Art Online in his room, the next he was actually transported into one of the game's many cities. Scrolling through his menu he found quite a few other players were confused with their new predicament and were furiously messaging GMs or even Kayaba Akihiko's account demanding to know what had happened.

Kazuto or Kirito as his in-game avatar was known, suddenly came to a realization and began scrolling through his friend list to send a message himself, but not to the GMs like everyone else. If anyone knew what had happened to them besides Kayaba it would be Argo the Rat, the rather well known information broker from EAO's beta-testing phase.

 _"Hey Argo, any idea what's happened here? Everyone seems to be freaking out."_ Kirito typed out before sending the message.

Argo's reply came only a few moments later. _"No idea Ki-bau. But every holligan who I've ever had contact with is jumping out of the woodworks for info on this thing. If you can find out anything, I'll pay you handsomely for the information."_

"So even Argo doesn't know what's happened..." Kirito mumbled to himself, unconsciously walking toward the edge of town. He was broken out of his stupor by the scream of "HELP!" coming from just outside of town.

Rushing to the scene, Kirito found a small group of players being attacked by the mid-level monster Briar Weasel. Before the monsters could attack again, he rushed in and defended one of them, a red clad samurai, who had fallen on the ground. "What are you doing?!" Kirito asked. "You are all high level, so either you're all really bad at this or something has happened."

"Thanks for the assist buddy." Replied the Samurai. "These normally aren't a problem but none of us have been able to activate a single skill."

"It just takes too long to open the menu." Added another man, brandishing a small sword and shield, "By the time we get to the menu to start a skill, there are too many of these Briar Weasels on top of us to execute it."

"Ok. Here's what we're going to do." Kirito said. "You, activate a skill to pull aggro toward yourself."

"Can do." The Samurai replied, already pulling up his menu.

"While you have their attention, everyone else can get a skill ready without interruption." Kirito continued. "And once I give the signal, we'll all attack. That should be plenty to take care of these monsters."

"You heard the man, everyone! Start getting a skill ready!" The Samurai yelled before activating a Taunt skill, pulling the Weasels attention toward him.

 _Wow. This is pretty cumbersome._ Kirito thought to himself as he got his own skill ready alongside the rest of the small party.

"Everybody ready!" He yelled, sword at the ready. "NOW!"

At Kirito's signal, each of the party's members launched an attack toward the animals swarming around, presumably, their leader, wiping out all but a few of the enemies. Any of the remaining Weasels quickly ran away with fear after seeing their comrades killed by the Adventurers.

 _They didn't keep attacking? That's odd._ He thought as the others rushed to thank him.

"You really saved our asses back there." The Samurai said before extending his hand, "The name's Klein, and these are my friends of the Guild Fuurinkazan."

Once Klein offered his hand in introduction, his official class was revealed to be a Samurai Knight of a fairly high level.

"Nice to meet you... I'm Kirito." He replied awkwardly, shaking Klein's hand.

"Wow a Rogue Berserker! I've never seen a class like that before."

"You must've played on the old server before Kayaba took over." Kirito replied. "One of the biggest changes he made to the system was the change to the class system. Players can now choose out of one big pool of classes for both their Primary and Secondary class, where as before, there were separate pools for Primary and Secondary classes. Why were you outside of the city? Most people don't have any idea of what's happening."

"It wasn't exactly our plan to go out once we 'arrived' in game." Said the Guardian Dynamm. "But we were mid-quest when we last logged out."

"Yeah its a good thing we had already made it most of the way back to the city." Klein continued. "Who knows what would've happened if you hadn't showed up."

"I'm not really sure. I haven't heard of anyone dying yet in game." Kirito replied, making a mental note to message Argo later about it.

"It doesn't really matter. You really saved our skins. How would you like a place in our Guild?" Klein asked, "You seem like you can handle yourself and with all this craziness happening, there's strength in numbers."

"Thanks for the offer but..." Kirito trailed off before saying, "I don't really work well with others."

"Ah come on man, you seemed to be working just fine with the others just a second ago." The Samurai replied smiling, "We all owe you, the least we can do is offer you entrance into our Guild."

Taken aback by this complete stranger's kindness, Kirito paused for a few seconds before replying, "I'll think about it."

"That's all we can ask." Klein said, sending a friend request. "The offers always open, just message me if you want in."

"Thanks." Kirito replied, accepting Klein's friend request. "And I'll be sure to let you know anything I can find out about this world."

"That'll be much appreciated." Klein said as he and his Guild went their separate way form Kirito. "We'll be seeing ya!"

As they went their separate ways, The Black Swordsman was already planning out his next move.

 _I need to learn more about this world._ Was Kirito's nearly immediate conclusion. _Maybe I glean some information form people at the Guild Hall..._ He thought before running toward the town's hub.

 **AN: And there's Chapter One! Hope you all enjoyed. For those who know of Log Horizon, don't worry. Shiroe and the others will be playing a role in this story, but I'm going to try and focus a bit more on the SAO side of things for a bit (This is the SAO fanfiction archive after all). For those of you who don't know Log Horizon, check it out! You'll be in for a treat.**

 **Feel free to leave a review with your thoughts or questions on the chapter. I'll be happy to answer any I can. Until next time!**


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